Writer Dan Slott is about to conclude a ten-year run on The Amazing Spider-Man. On Friday, Slott told Vulture that he would wrap up his time with Peter Parker after June’s issue #801. He’ll be moving on to another of Marvel’s flagship characters, taking his talents to Iron Man.
“This was a decision that was made way long ago,” Slott said in his interview with Vulture. “I gotta feel like a jerk, because whenever someone would interview me, or whenever it would come up on panels, I would look out at people and say with a stern look that I was never leaving. Very much in the same way I was saying, ‘Peter Parker is never coming back. I killed him’ [during The Superior Spider-Man]. I lied. I lied horribly.”
Slott has been on The Amazing Spider-Man since issue #546 kicked off the “Brand New Day” arc. He had the unenviable task of following up on the events of “One More Day,” which undid Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson, an event that proved controversial to many long-time Spider-Man fans. In Slott’s ten years with the title, he introduced a new status quo for Peter Parker and introduced many new characters and set pieces to Peter’s world. He also oversaw some major changes, like the entire Superior Spider-Man run that had Doctor Octopus take over Peter’s body and the resurrection of Kraven the Hunter. His contributions to the Spider-Man franchise have proven to be many.
So where does Slott go from here? The answer is Iron Man, which is set to lose writer Brian Michael Bendis. Slott doesn’t reveal when exactly he’ll take over on Iron Man, but he expressed his excitement to Vulture, noting the qualities that make Tony Stark such a unique character.
Conspicuously, Slott spent the latter end of the Vulture interview talking up Tony Stark as a character. That means readers can go ahead and assume that Stark will return to the Iron Man mantle following Bendis’ final issues of The Invincible Iron Man and an arc titled “The Search for Tony Stark.” That creates some new questions for the future of Riri Williams, who’s currently starring in the Iron Man series. However, Brian Michael Bendis has previously assured his readers that Riri has a place in the future Marvel Universe.